Scania Top Team: A Swedish trainer in Hong Kong

After working more than 15 years at Atteviks’ Scania workshop in the Swedish city of Jönköping, Tommy Hallberg was looking for a new challenge. He jumped at the chance to work in Hong Kong, where he is presently providing support for service technicians.

“I felt it was time to move on, so I applied for the job,” he says. “Now I have a six-month contract that I hope will be extended.”

Hallberg was a member of the winning Swedish Top Team contestants. Having eliminated the Swedish competition, his team had high hopes – but the dream ended in May at the European final in Brussels.

“At first I was really disappointed,” says Hallberg, “but after speaking with the winning British team, I fully understood why they won. Their team had invested countless hours in training and had received great support; it might be compared to a match between a Premier League club and a League 2 team. But it was our first entry, and we walked away with a rich experience.”

Now Hallberg is taking on a different challenge in Hong Kong, which is a growing market for Scania. His main piece of advice for the local service technicians is to study diagnostics programmes and manuals closer before reaching for tools. “The service technicians are skilled and well-organised, but occasionally slightly too eager to start disassembling components before having analysed what causes the fault. Trucks these days are far more complicated than the 3-series, and it is necessary to ponder a while.”

Hallberg feels fully at home in the former British colony and has mastered the art of using chopsticks. “My teenage daughters will be visiting during the autumn school holidays, and if the assignment is extended my wife will join me in January.”